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Cancer in Chinese

After starting chemotherapy, I was desperate to find someone who could speak to the doctor.

By Yong-Nan Wu
 
ONE DAY IN 1999, I felt a hard lump in my breast that was later confirmed to be breast cancer. I underwent surgery and continued with chemotherapy after the operation. The doctor recommended that I participate in the trial of an experimental chemotherapy drug and asked me to sign a document that had multiple pages. However, I didn't understand English and there was no one who could explain to me the contents of the document. Left with no choice, I dutifully signed my name on every line.
 
The four rounds of chemotherapy were excruciatingly painful. I was frightened by my body's reaction to the new medication and worried that the injections were inappropriate for me. I was especially terrified of the cancer itself. This overwhelming fear, exacerbated by the fact that I was unable to communicate with the doctor, caused me to lose hope in my ability to recover.
 
In the past, I had asked my relatives to interpret for me when I went to see the doctor, but their ignorance of medical terminology led to interpretation mishaps that sometimes made the situation worse.
 
Still, I was desperate to find someone who understood Chinese so that I could talk to the doctor. To this end, every time I was at the hospital for my doctor's visit, I often approached people who looked Asian, but it turned out that they were usually not Chinese. Thus, throughout the course of my treatment, I was never able to ask the nurse about my body temperature, blood pressure, or inquire about any aspect of my medical condition.
 
On one of these occasions, I failed to hear the nurse call my name after waiting to see the doctor for an extremely long time. I finally approached the nurse with my waiting ticket and was told that they had already called my name three times. As nobody had responded, they proceeded to see other patients. My name is composed of three syllables but I found out that they had only pronounced two syllables of my name, so of course I didn't understand them. When I eventually managed to see the doctor, we could not communicate.
 
On the day that I saw another patient accompanied by a medical interpreter, my circumstances began to change. It was then that I learned that patients who do not speak English are entitled to medical interpreters. From that point on, I learned to call the language agency PALS for Health to book an interpreter for my subsequent medical appointments. I finally gained an understanding of my medical condition and progress, the treatment plan, and what I needed to be cautious about. This crucial understanding helped dispel my fears and drastically strengthened my faith in my own ability to recover and conquer the disease.
 
Thus, I am painfully aware that, for those people who do not understand English, having the assistance of a professional interpreter makes all the difference in the world. It significantly increases the patient's faith in recovery and decreases their mental burden considerably. For patients, the inability to communicate can become the most sinister of obstacles.
 
A longer version of this article appeared in "In the Absence of Words" (2008), a booklet published by the L.A.-based nonprofit PALS for Health to educate residents about the importance of medical interpretation. LA Language World (LALA) welcomes "First Person" and other submissions from readers.

Date Posted: 5/13/2008